Exercise for Healthy and Beautiful Skin this Fall!

Your skin health is a reflection of your overall wellness from eating habits, to lifestyle to exercise. When we are born, our skin fits like an elastic, resilient glove protecting our bodies. As we change from babies to active, thinner children, and then grown adults our skin changes and loses tone.

Though our bodies age in many ways over the years, wrinkling and lost elasticity in our skin is the first sign which makes us look older. There are many conditions which have been proven to accelerate skin aging such as hormonal changes, smoking and sun exposure. We know that prevention is key with all of these conditions.

Healthier skin through exercise is a concept that is fairly new, but recent tests are showing that this concept is one worth consideration. It is widely accepted in the medical community that regular exercise is healthy for your heart, lungs and mood. Exercise can improve circulation helping nutrients and oxygen reach your cells efficiently for optimum performance. In addition, increased blood flow helps carry away waste products, including damaging free radicals, from working cells.

In a recent study, researchers at McMaster University in Ontario found that exercise may help keep skin younger, even in people who take up exercise later in life. After previously studying mice and finding that exercise kept their hearts, brains, muscles and reproductive organs strong, while being sedentary caused hair loss and illness, researchers performed a study on people involving 29 male and female volunteers ages 20 to 84.

To summarize the study, “Researchers found that after age 40, the men and women who exercised frequently had markedly thinner, healthier stratum corneums and thicker dermis layers in their skin. Their skin was much closer in composition to that of the 20- and 30-year-olds than to that of others of their age, even if they were past age 65.”

How exercise changes skin composition is not completely clear, but as part of the study, the researchers checked for alterations in the levels of myokines created by working muscles and found increased levels in exercisers. Myokines enter the bloodstream and jump-start changes in cells far from the muscles themselves. The researchers suspect that these additional myokines are involved in the skin changes related to exercise.

Learn more about this study HERE.

Here Are 5 Accepted Ways That Exercise Benefits Your Skin

Exercise makes you sweat. Sweat purges your body of toxins and waste that can clog pores and plague your skin with blemishes. Once you sweat out those toxins, it’s important to wash them off — you don’t want to leave them sitting on your skin.

Exercise improves tone. The more toned you are beneath your skin, the healthier your skin will look and feel. The stronger and firmer your muscles are,

Exercise improves blood flow to the skin. Studies have shown that regular exercise boosts blood flow, carrying more oxygen and nutrients to the skin cells.

Exercise eases stress. Exercise is widely accepted as a way to reduce the stress which may worsen some skin conditions.

Exercise gives you a natural glow. When you exercise, your skin begins to produce more of the natural oils that help skin look supple and healthy.

With all the known benefits exercise has on your overall health and strength, why not give it a try for your skin health, as well?